


The Next Five Times Clara Sees Missy

by Wonko



Series: Missy and the Impossible Girl [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-12-23 08:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11985669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonko/pseuds/Wonko
Summary: When Missy starts showing up in Clara's life between jaunts with the Doctor, Clara feels like she should be scared. And yet...





	1. Starbucks

**_i - Starbucks_ **

It’s Monday, and it’s late, and she knows she should be going straight to work, but the thought of seeing her rowdy group of bottom-stream Year 9s and trying to develop in them some enthusiasm for the poetry of Christina Rossetti first thing with no coffee fills her with a deep despair.

She’s been travelling all weekend with the Doctor and he’s dropped her off at home without actually giving her any time to sleep, despite having a time machine. He doesn’t often consider practical things, like that Clara might need a few hours to recover from seeing and running from _actual homicidal ghosts_ , or that he should at least leave her enough time to grab a double-shot latte before she has to go and tame the lions that are the boys in her first period class.

She waits for her coffee impatiently, her eyes on the clock as she watches it tick closer and closer to 8:50. She will probably have just enough to time to grab her coffee, run to the loo, dash to school and slide in behind her desk just as the second bell finishes ringing, assuming nothing goes wrong.

Something goes wrong.

She knows as soon as she enters the toilet that it’s not right. It should be a simple, rectangular room just big enough for one person to answer the call of nature, wash their hands and leave.

Instead it’s...well, it’s bigger on the inside. She frowns as she looks around. “Doctor?” she calls. “Have you redecorated since this morning, or-”

She stops and her eyes widen as she realises where she actually is. This TARDIS control room is currently in the form of a pleasantly decorated Edwardian-era drawing room, complete with chaise-longue, ornate fireplace and baby-grand piano. There is a table set for afternoon tea in the centre of the room. There are delicate finger sandwiches of smoked salmon and cucumber, scones with jam and cream, madeleines dusted with a light layer of icing sugar, and a pot of what smells like Darjeeling next to two blue and white china teacups with matching saucers.

Missy reaches forward and pours the tea. It pools smoothly in the cup, its amber colour slowly darkening to deep brown as more liquid is added. “Hello, puppy,” the Time Lady says, grinning like a shark.

Clara turns and makes for the doors but she’s too late; Missy snaps her fingers and they’re locked.

“Now, now,” her captor says evenly, rising from her seat and crossing smoothly to stand in front of Clara, whose breath is heaving in what feels close to panic. “Awfully rude to leave before you’ve eaten.”

“What do you want?” Clara snaps, her heart thrumming in her chest like a freight train.

Missy gestures magnanimously. “I want you to sit down and have some tea, poppet. Try to keep up.”

Clara’s head shakes almost of its own accord. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” She is a little ashamed of the tremor in her voice.

Missy cocks her head and seems to consider it. “Not today, I don’t think,” she eventually decides. Clara releases a breath, considers that the woman before her is completely insane and that she lies as easily as breathing, then considers that she has no way of getting out of here without Missy’s consent and that making her angry is probably not how she’s going to extricate herself from this situation.

“Uhm...right, okay,” she breathes at last. “This is weird and...you know, terrifying, but...okay.” She steps across the control room and takes a seat on the proffered chair. Missy does likewise, delicately descending onto the seat opposite.

“One lump or two?” she asks, grasping a rough white sugar cube with some fine silver tongs.

Clara doesn’t take sugar in her tea, but thinks that some fast glucose will probably be helpful if she has to run, so she indicates two lumps and watches the grains slowly break up and dissolve in the brown liquid. Missy holds up the milk jug, a question on her face.

“Uhm, yeah,” Clara replies, then adds, “I think in this era polite ladies would, uhm, put the milk in first.”

“Well, that’s stupid, how do you know you’re not putting in too much?” Missy says. “And anyway, I’m a Time Lady, anachronisms are my forte.” She raises one eyebrow archly. “Besides, since when was I polite?”

Clara coughs and takes a sip of her tea. It’s sickly sweet, but she welcomes the moment of respite it gives her. “Well, when you tied me up, back on Skaro...” She pauses and flushes furiously, then carries on, “uhm, you made sure my skirt wouldn’t fall over my face, so that was...you know, polite-ish.”

Missy smiles, her eyes flashing. “Well, I think a girl deserves her dignity maintained in a bondage situation,” she says, grinning wider as she sees Clara squirm. “At least on the first date.”

Clara takes another sip of tea to calm herself. “What do you want?”

“Oh no, no, no Clara,” Missy exclaims, replacing her own teacup in its saucer. “You were doing so well: now you want to jump into the main event and skip the foreplay?” She tuts.

Clara swallows hard, clutching her teacup with white-knuckle force. “Missy-”

“Oh fine!” The Time Lady relents, and picks up her teacup again. “I suppose we’re both,” she pauses and glances at her own tea and Clara’s, “sufficiently moistened.” Her shark-like grin reappears as she hears Clara squeak a little, involuntarily. “The truth is Clara, you interest me.”

“I-” Clara croaks, then clears her throat and tries again. “I interest you? I thought you said I was dull.”

“Well,” Missy says magnanimously, “I’m very changeable, don’t you know; it’s a feature of being absolutely bananas.”

Clara surprises herself by choking out a small but genuine laugh. “Right,” she says. “And when you change again, that’s when you kill me, right?”

Missy purses her lips, throwing her razor cheekbones into even sharper relief. Clara stamps on the traitorous thought that it’s a good look for her. “Hmm,” Missy says, seeming to give the point some serious consideration. “Possibly,” she allows. “But I’ve been travelling up and down your timestream for the last week and a half and I’m not bored yet. That’s some sort of a record, for a human.”

Clara’s eyes bulge. “You’ve been in my past?”

“Oh, all over it,” Missy breezes. “Blackpool 1986, Glasgow 1990, Bradford 1995, London 2011, and points in between.” She shrugs. “Even saw Bowtie once, chatting to little you on the swings.” She cocks her head. “Didn’t say hello though. Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Clara shakes her head. “Why?”

“You think I’d deprive myself of the look on old Eyebrows’ face that day at St Paul’s?”

“No, I mean, uhm...why are you interested in me?” She grips her teacup a little tighter.

Missy focuses pale eyes on her and takes another sip of tea. “Because you’re boring.”

Clara blinks. “Right,” she says. “Right, uhm...yeah. It’s just that, uh, that’s the complete opposite of what you just said.”

Missy laughs. “Bananas, remember?” She places her cup back in its saucer. “That’s what’s interesting. That you’re a boring, ordinary human, as far as I can tell. And yet…”

Clara takes a deep breath and cautiously holds it. “And yet?”

There is a long pause, then Missy looks away. “Finished your tea?”

Clara looks down into the cup. “Oh, uhm…” She downs the last mouthful. “Yes.” Then, after a moment, she adds, “thanks.”

Missy rises and makes her way to the baby-grand piano sitting a little way from their table. “I’ll drop you at work, shall I?” she asks absently, then sits at the piano and begins to play a tune. After a second, Clara recognises it as _Pop Goes the Weasel._

“Are you...are you controlling your TARDIS with a nursery rhyme?”

Missy grins and laughs. “Why not? It’s mostly telepathic: him indoors just enjoys all that running around and fiddling with knobs a bit too much. It’s all a bit Freudian.” She finishes the song with a little flourish. “We’re here.”

Clara blinks. “But it didn’t make the noise.”

Missy rolls her eyes. “We don’t all fly with the handbrake on,” she says. “Anyway, hop it puppy. I’ve got places to see, people to maim.”

Clara doesn’t think it wise to turn her back on Missy, so she backs herself towards the door, never taking her eyes from the Time Lady, the way she’d watch a wasp flying round her classroom. Missy gazes at her steadily with those pale, ageless eyes. Clara feels a shudder run through her. “Okay, well, this has been…” She decides against finishing that thought and fumbles for the door handle. She somehow manages to open it without taking her eyes off Missy, but she has to turn round to actually leave. The first thing she looks for is the clock sculpture the PTA installed near the main entrance last year, at the cost of ten grand that she and the other teachers were righteously outraged had not been spent on things that would actually improve their pupils’ education. She’s already mentally preparing her excuses for being so late when she sees the time. She turns back to Missy.

“It’s eight thirty,” she says.

Missy’s face is blank. “Yes,” she says, managing to drawl the word out into at least six syllables.

Clara turns back to the clock. “I thought I’d be late,” she says.

Missy’s face crumples in derision. “Why would I bring you back late?” she says. “It’s a _time_ machine.”

Clara turns, opens her mouth, closes it again. Then laughs. “Thanks,” she says, then walks out of the TARDIS.

Missy watches her go, taking in the bounce in her step and the swing of her hips. “See you soon, puppy,” she mutters, then turns back to her piano. She cracks her knuckles absently, then begins to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will, obviously, be four more chapters of this and I don't normally like posting works in progress, but I've got a ton of my actual real work to do today and just wanted to get something up for the three or so people reading this series. I am so enjoying writing these two at the moment.


	2. (Men sell not such in any town)

**_ii -_ ** **_(Men sell not such in any town)_ **

Thursday is Clara’s worst day; she’s on all day with no free periods, and the day ends with her nightmare Year 9s for a double lesson. She knows that she really needs to get into the meat of some Rossetti today; they have an assessment on the topic coming up and she needs to at least give them the opportunity to not study for it. She’s resigned herself to teaching _Goblin Market_ that afternoon. It depresses her a little. She loves the poem, loves the sing-songy rhymes, the eerie goblins, the sweet relationship between the protagonist sisters. She knows her year 9s will simply declare it ‘rubbish’. Her head of department would probably say she just needs to find a way to reach them, to engage them with her enthusiasm for the beauty of the language, but she can’t help but think of a quote from a fantasy novel she read last year: _“_ _Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and_ _some men's minds are woeful small targets_ _.“_

Still, it’s her job, so she steels herself to battle through and thinks of where she and the Doctor might go at the weekend.

“Miss Oswald!” a voice calls as she trudges towards her classroom. She spins round to see Mr Armitage, the headteacher, waddling towards her with a slightly panicked look on his face.

“What can I do for you?” she asks kindly, hoping his worried expression has nothing to do with her, but somehow knowing she’s not that lucky.

He stops in front of her, breathing a little heavily. “We’re having a surprise OFSTED inspection. Today!”

A stab of anxiety thrills through Clara. This is not good, not good at all. Coal Hill has been resisting forced academisation for nearly a full year now. Their only argument against being taken over by one of those wretched Academy chains is good inspection reports. But everyone knows OFSTED is political; that previously Outstanding rated schools are suddenly put in special measures soon after and gobbled up by these chains, privatised by the back door.

“How many inspectors?” she asks, a little breathless now herself.

“Just one. She wants to see Maths and Physics in the morning and English in the afternoon. She asked for your lesson. By name.”

Clara’s eyes widen. The only way she can think that an OFSTED inspector would know to ask for her by name is if there had been a complaint. She searches through her mind, scanning back over the last month to see if she can remember saying or doing anything she shouldn’t have. Nothing immediately comes to mind.

“Right...uh, okay. No problem.” She smiles brightly, though inwardly she’s cringing because of course it’s her bloody year 9s.

She spends most of the morning neglecting her other classes in favour of touching up her Year 9 lesson plan, desperately trying to think of a way to get and keep their attention on her and the poetry, rather than on the lurking visitor. Her class are just the sort of group to think they’ll be able to get the teacher in trouble by behaving badly during an inspection.

She bolts a sandwich in her classroom at lunchtime, and about ten minutes before the bell there is a knock at her door. It’s April Maclean, one of Clara’s favourites, though sadly she’s not teaching her this year.

“Mr Armitage asked me to escort our guest to your room, Miss,” she says.

Clara stands, brushing sandwich crumbs from her top. “Oh, right,” she says. “Well...come in.” She affixes a bright smile to her face as April opens the door wider and steps back to allow the inspector to enter.

Clara’s eyes travel up the woman’s body from her feet - sensible black pumps with a low heel - past her thighs - a navy pencil skirt - up to her torso - white shirt with the top two buttons undone, a navy jacket to match her skirt - and finally her face.

It’s Missy.

Clara’s mind goes blank for a solid ten seconds and when she can form a coherent thought she realises that April is gone and she and the Time Lady are alone. “What the hell are you _doing_ here?” she hisses.

Missy pouts. “You’re not happy to see me?” she says, simpering. “I’m wounded, puppy.”

Clara is incensed. “I’ve spent the whole day working myself up about an inspection and you’re...you’re…” She trails off as her eyes dip down to the badge on Missy’s chest, and realises immediately that it must be psychic paper because where it should say something prosaic like ‘OFSTED Inspector’ it actually says:

 _Missy (aka The Mistress)_  
_Very scary lady_  
_Evil alien mastermind_  
_Sexy. Just go with it._

Clara immediately blushes and turns to fiddle with some papers on her desk. She feels rather than hears Missy sidle up behind her. Her voice is low and smooth as she leans forward a little to whisper in Clara’s ear. “Besides, Clara...inspecting you is still very much on the agenda.”

A shiver runs down Clara’s spine and Missy sees it and laughs.

“So, what are you teaching the little brats today then?”

Clara takes a shuddering breath. “Uhm...Christina Rossetti. _Goblin Market._ ”

“Ah!” Missy says. “I know it.” She begins to recite.

 _“We must not look at goblin men,_  
_We must not buy their fruits:_  
_Who knows upon what soil they fed_  
_Their hungry thirsty roots?”_

Clara tries not to think about how nice the words sound in Missy’s accent. Especially the long vowel sounds in _fruits_ and _roots_. She imagines Missy's lips and tongue forming the syllables, lets her mind drift briefly to what else those lips and tongue could do-

She’s saved from her own traitorous thoughts by the ringing of the bell.

Missy seems to be enjoying playing her part as the kids pile in, taking their seats and pulling out their exercise books with varying degrees of haste. Clara feels herself slip into her teacher persona, is glad she still has that element of control.

She takes the register on her computer, then begins to teach. The lesson goes well, probably about the best it could ever have gone, given who she is teaching. She takes the poem in little chunks so they don’t get immediately bored, sets them little activities to do every few minutes. The pace is quick, which is the only way to engage her Year 9s, especially for a double lesson. Clara even manages to mostly forget Missy is there as the lesson draws closer to its end and she begins to read the last few sections of the poem to her class. She walks slowly between the tables as she reads from a beautiful hardback edition of _Goblin Market and Other Poems_ ; her own personal copy, brought from home. She lets herself enjoy the feeling of the words in her mouth as she reaches the part of the poem where Lizzie cleverly saves her sister from the malaise brought on by the goblins’ trickery.

 _“Did you miss me?_  
_Come and kiss me._  
_Never mind my bruises,_  
_Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices_  
_Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,_  
_Goblin pulp and goblin dew._  
_Eat me, drink me, love me;_  
_Laura, make much of me;_  
_For your sake I have braved the glen_  
_And had to do with goblin merchant men.”_

She knows better than to look at any of her students as she reads this part. She hears the sniggers of course, because not even the most swotty and dedicated of kids can get through their teacher reading the words “suck my juices” without a titter or two. And there are times as a teacher when you need to let things go for your own sanity, so she affects deafness as the boys nudge each other and the girls pretend to be disgusted by their classmates’ dirty minds.

She does make the mistake of looking at Missy though.

She’s sitting at the back of the classroom, not even pretending to write on the clipboard she brought. Her eyes are dancing with amusement as she locks her gaze with Clara’s. Red lips part and that wicked, cruel tongue darts out, then slowly slides over her lips. Clara feels her pulse jump in her throat as a flush flows up from her chest to her cheeks. Missy purses her lips in a calculated, deliberate way and then - with a look that somehow smoulders despite the ice in her eyes - blows a kiss in Clara’s direction.

Clara drops the book.

The class break out in giggles and Missy laughs, clearly delighted to have achieved the discombobulation that was her obvious object. She stands quickly and crosses to Clara, picking up the book and holding it out to the other woman. “Here you are poppet,” she says smoothly. Clara reaches out. Their fingers brush together as she grasps the book and Clara feels a shiver rush down her spine.

“D’you fancy her, Miss?” says Taylor, an absolutely insufferable little shit about whom Clara has never been able find a single thing to like. She opens her mouth to speak, but before she can turn towards him to verbally eviscerate him for his cheek, his lack of respect, his unmitigated gall, she finds that Missy is looking down at him. She watches as the grin slowly fades from his face. He ducks his head, unable to meet the Time Lady’s unwavering blue gaze. The whole class is eerily silent, as if some part of them can sense that they are small, vulnerable creatures and that a true predator is among them.

Clara glances down at the psychic paper name badge affixed to Missy’s chest. It now says ‘ _Incredibly Sexy Alien_ ’ in big bold letters, with ‘ _But still quite scary’_ in smaller type below it.

“Apologise,” Missy says softly, staring down at the boy.

Taylor shifts in his seat. “Sorry Miss,” he mumbles.

Missy leans down and brings her lips close to his ear. “Say something nice,” she murmurs, and Clara’s breath catches in her throat. She shakes her head wildly, but no-one is looking at her: everyone’s attention is focused on Missy and Taylor and the fragile as newly-blown glass moment stretching between them.

The bell rings.

Taylor is up out of his seat and running within seconds. The rest of the class follow without waiting to be dismissed, and for once Clara doesn’t correct them. She is shaken and has to force her hands not to tremble.

“Were you going to kill him?” she demands as soon as they are alone. Her voice is high and tight.

Missy steps back from Clara and makes a mock bow. “You’re welcome.”

Clara’s eyes are wide as saucers. “No!” she exclaims. “My God, Missy!”

Missy’s lips twist into a sneer. “He’s a spotty wee nyaff, Clara. No loss.”

For a moment there is a pregnant pause and then Clara finds herself surging forward, forcing Missy’s body back against the wall. She thinks for a second that it’s the opposite of how they were in the Dalek sewers on Skaro, then she forgets about that as her anger bubbles up. “No. You stay away from my children. You try to hurt them, you have to go through me. Understand?”

Missy is infuriatingly unconcerned. “Not a lot you can do about it, puppy,” she says.

Clara sets her jaw. “I’ll do the only thing I can do. I’ll stand between you and them.” She’s not afraid in this moment; rather, she is fierce. She knows she absolutely would throw her body between any of her pupils and harm, even Taylor.

Missy’s eyes take in Clara’s face and and eyes with a look that seems to press up against her mind somehow, testing her resolve. “So the puppy does know how to bite,” Missy murmurs. Her pale eyes are unreadable. “All right, Clara,” she says softly after another moment. “All right. Your little monsters are perfectly safe from me.” And then, as if she’s done it a hundred times before, she leans forward, taking Clara’s face in her hands. Time seems to stand still as Missy draws her face closer, her hands surprisingly gentle. “You know, I think I’d probably give you most things you asked for,” she breathes against Clara’s lips for a bare moment, just enough to allow Clara’s breath to hitch and her pupils to dilate, and then she pulls back. Clara, to her absolute mortification, feels her head move forward to chase the Time Lady’s lips back from wherever they’re going.

“You’re...you’re finished here then, Ms Oakdown?”

Clara spins round  to see Mr Armitage standing slightly awkwardly in the doorway. His eyes flit between the two women, and Clara flushes when she realises he must have seen the aborted kiss, at the very least.

“Oh aye,” Missy says smoothly. “I’ll just grab my notes.” She doesn’t seem awkward at all. It’s Clara whose breathing is erratic, whose pulse is through the roof, whose lips are tingling.

Clara’s boss gives her a thumbs up sign as Missy exits the room ahead of him. “Keeping us out of special measures in your own inimitable fashion,” he says, grinning.

Missy is a few steps ahead of him. “You want to get a new physics teacher,” she says casually. “The bloke I saw today is a bit pants.”

Left behind in her classroom, Clara takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her heart is thundering in her chest, jumping and dancing instead of its usual steady beat. She wonders about this strange attraction. How can she be feeling this? She wonders if Missy has tricked her somehow, hypnotised her, if this is all part of some evil scheme that she can’t see the point of yet. She wonders what Missy’s lips would have tasted like.

Most of all, she wonders when she’ll see Missy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote Clara thinks of at the beginning is from _The Name of the Wind_ by Patrick Rothfuss.


	3. The Eye of the Storm

**_iii - The Eye of the Storm_ **

As Clara fights to get air into her burning lungs, she wonders why she doesn’t just give in and wear trainers whenever she knows she’s going to travel with the Doctor. Because they always end up running.

This time they’re on Ganymede in the late 22nd century. The Doctor promised her a peaceful jaunt to a newly minted human colony, Phoebe - at this stage in history, the farthest human colony from Earth. It’s a new frontier, he says; it’ll be fun, he says. And it is, for a little while. Wandering the marketplace, soaking in the sense of excitement and possibility all around them, looking up at Jupiter through the vaulted glass dome holding in their air. She’d been fascinated by the Great Red Spot, somehow finding immense beauty in its timeless rage and ferocity.

And then things had started to go wrong.

They’d noticed the marketplace begin to thin out. Stalls were closing up a little earlier than expected, people were throwing them nervous sidelong glances, and the hair on the back of Clara’s neck had begun to stand on end.

“Excuse me, what’s happening?” she’d asked a passing stallholder.

“Don’t you know?” he’d replied. “It’s the night of the hunt.”

All in all, what had happened next was quite predictable.

She’s running, the domed marketplace long behind her. She’s lost in the darkened, winding tunnels of Phoebe’s undercity, being chased farther and farther below the surface. These are decades old tunnels now, carved directly from the ice and rock of the Jovian moon’s crust, the first colony structures built. She can hear the grunting and whooping of her pursuers gaining behind her. She has no idea where the Doctor is; they lost each other near the beginning of the pursuit. She doesn’t know why she’s being chased either. About the only thing she does know is that it’s a really bad idea to let them catch her.

Not that she has much choice in the matter. She rounds a bend and has to hold her hands out in front of her face to stop herself barrelling headlong into a solid rock wall. _Oh God, it’s a dead end, oh God, oh God._ She turns, begins to run back the way she came, but it’s too late. Her pursuers are upon her; three men dressed in black, with long, pointed masks on their faces and fearsome serrated blades in their hands. They look like some nightmarish caricatures of plague doctors from Earth’s ancient past, but she knows in her bones that they mean her harm.

“Now wait, just wait, just listen,” she begins to say, but is silenced by one of the men backhanding her across the face. Her head whips to the side and she tastes blood in her mouth. Her lip has split open.

“Quiet,” her attacker hisses.

“Why, worried I’ll attract attention?” she snaps back, anger making her fear fall away.

“No.” He shrugs. “No-one can hear you. And if they could, no-one cares. I just don’t like listening to my kills bleat.”

And with that the fear returns full force. It rushes through her like ice water in her veins, making her knees go weak and her heart hammer. She wants to run, every instinct in her is telling her to escape, but there’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to run and no-one to save her.

She closes her eyes. So, this is it. This is how she’s going to die. And she’ll never know why. Her skin prickles as she feels him reach out and slide his fingers into her hair, forcing her head back, exposing her pale, trembling throat.

“Take your hands off her.”

For a second no-one moves. Clara’s breath is stuck somewhere between her mouth and her lungs. She knows that voice. She knows the barely contained rage beneath its surface. The owner of that voice is like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot - all fury and chaos, but breathtaking too, beauty mixed with violence.

Missy walks forward out of the shadows. “I said take your hands off her,” she repeats. Her voice is like cracking ice.

Clara’s attacker lets her go and takes a step towards the Time Lady, but one step is all he gets because she’s got a weapon in her hand and she vapourises him the instant he’s no longer touching Clara. His knife clatters to the ground and Clara immediately picks it up, backing away from the other two men, brandishing the blade before her as her eyes flit from one man to the other.

Missy vapourises the one on the right. The last remaining man backs up, forgetting about Clara in his haste to get away from Missy. Clara makes a grab for him, bringing her blade to his throat.

“Right you bastard, you’re going to tell me what’s going on here or I’m going to let my friend here do to you what she just did to your mates.”

“Oh, we’re friends now? That’s nice,” Missy remarks casually, inspecting the nails of her left hand as she absently tosses and catches her vapouriser with her right. “D’you know, I’ve actually broken a nail killing these wee arseholes? How annoying is that?”

Clara ignores her, directing her attentions to the man trembling in her arms. “I mean it,” she says. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s...it’s the night of the hunt,” he says, as if that explains everything.

Missy rolls her eyes. “Yes, we got that part. What are you hunting? Why? What’s with the outfits? Come on now, I’m essentially immortal but my friend here-” she pauses briefly to bestow a sarcastic leer on Clara who blushes furiously, ”is slowly dying of old age as we speak.”

The man gulps and reaches up to remove his plague doctor mask. Underneath he is young, not much older than one of Clara’s sixth-formers. He’s a boy, not a man at all. His pupils are dilated and the sclera are shot through with burst blood vessels. With a sudden shock, Clara recognises the symptoms from a presentation given by an officer from the Met to the year 10s last week.

“He’s on something,” she says to Missy. Missy frowns and comes closer. Her eyes meet his and search them.

“The monsters,” he babbles. “Have to kill the monsters.”

Missy reaches out and places her hands on either side of his head. Her face is gripped in fierce concentration, her eyes closed.

“They’ve been drilling,” she says, monotonous, like she’s reciting someone else’s words. “Into the ocean below the crust. So deep and so far. Bringing up water. Desalinating and drinking it. Making their oxygen with it. And hydrogen for fuel.” Her eyes open. “But something else came up too.”

A cold shiver runs through Clara’s blood. “What was it?” she asks, her voice tremulous.

Missy’s face contorts in what looks like pain. “His mind is fractured, I can’t see...no, wait. Wait.” She breathes deeply, and brings her forehead to rest on his, deepening the connection. “Microscopic creatures. Not even self-aware.” Her frown deepens. “The desalination procedure kills them but they secrete a chemical as they die that interacts badly with human neuro-chemistry.” She lets his face go, stepping back and wincing.

“Are you hurt?” Clara asks, concern tinging her voice.

Missy waves her off. “Headache. His mind has been broken by the effects of the chemical contamination. It’s created some kind of mass hallucination. They all believe that some people are monsters spreading disease through the colony, and they’ve chosen hunters to deal with the problem.” She stops for a second, breathes through her nose. “Being inside his mind, it’s...sharp. Like swimming in a pool of broken glass. Except, you know, with my big massive brain.”

Clara snorts. “I’ve got some paracetamol on the TARDIS,” she says, then seems to suddenly realise she’s still holding a blade to the boy’s throat. “What do we do with him?” she asks. Missy holds up her vapouriser and grins. Clara pales. “No, Missy.”

Missy’s eyes flash dangerously. “He was going to kill you.”

Clara drops the knife and pushes the boy onto the floor. He’s limp, terrified. He doesn’t even seem to notice the change in position. Clara crosses to Missy in two strides. “It’s not his fault,” she insists, grabbing hold of Missy’s forearms. “You said it yourself, he’s hallucinating. And look at him. He’s just a kid, really.”

Missy’s face is unreadable, her eyes flat. They stand together for a whole interminable minute. Clara can feel every second of it ticking away. Then Missy relaxes. “Standing between me and him, eh?” she asks softly.

Clara almost faints with relief. “Something like that,” she breathes, then gives in to an impulse and throws her arms round Missy’s neck. “You saved me,” she murmurs against her ear. “Thank-you.”

“No-one gets to kill you but me,” Missy replies, but there’s no bite to it. She slides her arms round Clara’s waist and holds on tight.

Clara knows the woman in her arms is dangerous. She knows she’s a killer and that she’s unpredictable. She knows that she is a great, eternal storm. But right now she feels like she’s in the eye of that storm and she can’t see the fury and the power. All she can see is the terrible beauty.

Missy is the one to break their embrace, pulling back and grasping Clara’s chin with her right hand. “You’re bleeding,” she says softly, and brings her thumb up to slowly caress the split lip. Clara feels heat rush to her face as her breath catches. Her lips tingle and her stomach drops.

“Missy,” she murmurs, and then realises that the heat and the tingling aren’t solely the result of hormones. Missy’s hand is glowing slightly, emitting a warm golden light as she runs her thumb across Clara’s damaged lip. Clara gasps. “Missy…”

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” Missy says as her hand returns to normal. Clara runs her tongue over her lip, finds it healed and good as new. Missy’s pupils darken as she watches Clara’s lips moisten. “I’ll never live it down.”

Clara swallows hard. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she says.

They are silent and still for a moment, breathing the same air, until the boy on the floor whimpers and the bubble bursts. Missy takes a step back.

“The Doctor’s one level up,” she says, her voice as casual as it has ever been. “Tell him what you know, he’ll work out the solution pretty quickly. It’s just a case of releasing a neutralising chemical through the colony’s air supply. Simple, even for him.”

Clara nods. “Thanks,” she says.

Missy inclines her head. “Don’t mention it, puppy,” she says, turning to walk away. “I mean ever. To anyone.”

Clara laughs. Tries not to feel disappointed that Missy’s leaving. Then the Time Lady stops and looks back over her shoulder. “Do you ever get tired of all your trips with him turning into frantic fights for your life?” she asks.

Clara smiles, shrugs. “Maybe. Why, you offering something better?” She means it as a joke, but Missy meets her eyes seriously.

“Do you want me to?” she asks, her voice low and throaty, and Clara feels her pulse jump in her throat.

“Yeah,” she breathes, then attempts a light smirk. “Why not?”

“Oh, I think a lot of people could suggest a lot of reasons why not,” Missy replies seriously.

Clara nods. “Yeah, probably,” she says. “Don’t really care.”

Missy’s lips twitch and Clara can see she’s trying not to smile. “I’ll see you soon then,” she says.

Clara watches her turn again and walk away. She watches until she can no longer see the Time Lady in the shadows of the old tunnels, a grin plastered on her face. Then she goes to find the Doctor. It’s time to save this colony, and that’s what he does best.

And soon... _soon_ , she’d said, there would be a trip with Missy.

An adventure.


	4. Power, Violence, Control

**_iv - Power, Violence, Control_ **

Missy comes for her on a Friday afternoon after work. Clara has just come back from helping out a friend in the PE department supervising a trip to a taekwondo dojang. She’s supposed to get them to do something English-related after the trip so that it can be called cross-curricular work and Mr Armitage can tick that box on the school improvement plan. She’s still mulling over whether she’ll just get them to write a simple personal experience essay about the trip and what they learned, or if she wants to go a bit deeper and make them reflect on the intersections of power, violence and control.

Not that she herself is fascinated by those things. Definitely not.

Missy is waiting for her by her bike. She’s changed out of her usual psycho Mary Poppins ensemble into something that almost - but not quite, because Missy can’t help but stand out whatever she’s wearing, at least to Clara - blends in to their surroundings. Dark blue skinny jeans tucked into calf-length soft brown boots, a leather jacket similar to her own over a T-shirt that reads ‘Hot for Teacher.’ She’s let her hair down out of its usual severe bun, letting it cascade in dark auburn waves over her shoulders.

She’s so sexy that Clara has to stop ten feet away, for fear of falling to her knees and begging to be allowed to fuck her right there in the car park.

Missy, of course, is the definition of casual. “Hello, puppy,” she says, her voice low and truffle-smooth.

“Uhm, h-hi,” Clara mumbles. “You, uh...you look nice.”

Missy looks herself up and down, as if the concept of her being devastatingly attractive has never once occurred to her. “Do I?” she says innocently, and Clara laughs. The laughter breaks the tension and Clara feels strong enough to come closer. She leans up against her bike next to Missy.

“Did you want me to take you for a ride?”

Missy snorts. “I don’t think you could handle me.”

“We could find out, if you like.”

Missy turns to look at her, her pale eyes intense and focused. “You should be careful what you offer, Clara,” she says.

A flush jumps to Clara’s cheeks and she has to look away. “So, are you just here for a chat or did you want something?”

Missy pushes off from the bike and steps away. “I always want something,” she teases, sing-songy. “But I actually came to take you on a little trip. Not far. Still interested?”

Clara’s heart leaps, but she hesitates. “Is this a trap?” she asks.

Missy looks back at her, unsmiling. “Almost certainly,” she says.

A second ticks past, then two, then three. Clara remembers Missy before they all went to Skaro, pleading with the Doctor not to go. _“I know traps; traps are my flirting._ ” She thinks of the ways Missy tricked her in the Dalek sewers, with the fall, then with the handcuffs, then with the terrifying, horrific experience inside the Dalek casing. She should have seen all of them coming, she realises, especially the final betrayal. But then...Missy had put herself at risk too. She had trapped Clara in the Dalek, true, but she had also handed her a weapon. Like when she’d turned her back on her while Clara was holding that ridiculous pointy stick, panting with fear and anger. Inside the Dalek, Clara could have killed her at any time. All she would have needed to do was muster up enough hatred.

“Why did you leave me the pointy stick?” Clara asks at last.

Missy blinks once, then twice. “Because you asked for it,” she says simply.

Clara takes in a deep breath. Decides. “Where are we going then?” she asks. Missy grins her shark-like, feral grin and Clara feels her heart start to race.

For the first time, she walks into one of Missy’s traps willingly.

Missy has left her TARDIS a street away, disguised as a bright red 1989 Mitsubishi Eclipse sports car. Clara walks all the way around it three times, trying to get her brain round the idea that she can see through the windows to the inside of the car, but that the inside isn’t actually there. It’s not usually a problem with the Doctor’s TARDIS because the windows are partially opaque and she’s too short to look in them anyway.

“Come on poppet, in you get,” Missy says, her tone holding a suggestion of impatience.

Clara reaches out and opens the passenger side door at the same time that Missy opens the driver’s side. She leans in like she’s going to sit in the passenger seat, but, of course, there is no passenger seat and she ends up half falling into the TARDIS and landing on her arse on the carpeted floor of the control room. Missy laughs at her, loud and long. The Time Lady has, of course, entered perfectly gracefully.

“How did you manage that without falling?” Clara grumbles.

Missy holds out her hand to help Clara up. “Practice,” she says, and gives Clara’s hand a tug and pulls her to her feet.

The abrupt motion brings their bodies flush together. They’re almost the same height anyway, and Clara’s shoes have a slight heel, so they end up eye to eye. Clara’s cheeks are burning.

Slowly, as if she’s giving Clara time to move away, Missy brings her arms up and drapes them round Clara’s shoulders. Clara releases a slow, tremulous breath. Her hands come to rest on Missy’s hips, then slide round her waist, pulling her even closer. They’re thigh to thigh, stomach to stomach, breast to breast. Missy’s breath is warm on her lips.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Missy whispers. Clara feels it from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head, in a tingling rush down her spine.

“What?” she answers, her voice equally soft. A thrill shoots through her when she feels an answering shiver in Missy’s body. It’s tiny, almost imperceptible, she likely wouldn’t have noticed it at all if she wasn’t pressed up against the Time Lady so close, so hard. She’s pressed against her so tightly she can feel the drumbeat of her hearts.

Missy doesn’t answer in words. Instead she brings her hands round to cradle Clara's head and presses their foreheads together. Clara has seen Time Lord telepathy before, but nothing has prepared her for the feeling of it; the feeling of another presence inside her head, something that’s not her own thoughts or an aspect of herself, but an entirely new being. She panics for a second, then relaxes when she realises that Missy is not pressing, not taking anything. She could, Clara knows; she could ride roughshod through her mind like she did with that boy on Ganymede, taking whatever she wants, destroying her from the inside out. She could show her the power of the Time Lords, the violence of madness.

Instead, she shows her the control of The Mistress.

Missy opens her mind to Clara and Clara falls into it. The mind of a Time Lord is a vast, unfathomable thing and she thinks she should feel lost, but she doesn’t. She sees herself reflected a hundred, a thousand, a million times, like echoes. Missy’s drive, her hunger, her obsession, all focused on her. It’s terrifying, it’s breathtaking, it’s exhilarating.

Missy lets her see for a bare moment, then pulls away, her mind retreating. Clara almost cries out, suddenly lonely and bereft, and she surges forward, chasing that presence, that intimacy.

Their lips clash together hard and fast like a head on car crash, all bumping teeth and dueling tongues and the sweetest pain, then Missy turns her head slightly and they find a way to do it better; lips crushing and sliding and pursing, hands ghosting across backs and hips and through hair, hearts racing, breath screaming in their lungs. Clara has been kissed before and kissed well, she’d thought, but nothing like this, nothing at all like this, because this is heat and fire and the burning heart of time itself marking her, claiming her. It takes her a moment to realise that Missy’s lips aren’t on hers anymore, that her back is pressed hard against the wall of the TARDIS and that Missy’s thigh is between her legs, thrusting, her hands on her stomach under her shirt, her mouth latched to her neck, licking and sucking at the pulse thundering in the pale column of her throat. Clara sinks her fingers into Missy’s hair, gasping out her need, pulling her closer like she can’t get enough. “Koschei,” she moans.

And the moment breaks.

Missy’s movements still, her breathing slowly coming back to normal. Clara strokes her hands through her hair, kisses her forehead, frowns when she gets no response. “What’s wrong?” she asks, her chest still rising and falling fast with her shallow breaths.

Missy is silent for another long moment. “How do you know that name?” she asks at last.

Clara’s frown deepens. “I...I don’t-” She stops, frustration making her terse. “It’s your name.”

“I know that, Clara,” Missy says, her voice cold. “I’m asking you how _you_ know that.”

Clara opens her mouth, then closes it again. “I-” she begins, then stops. A presentiment of fear dawns in her dark eyes. “I don’t know,” she admits.

And then her eyes flicker closed and she’s falling forwards, blackness clouding her vision. She distantly feels Missy’s arms tightening around her, hears her voice murmuring “ _I’ve got you, poppet, I’ve got you_ ,” and then there’s nothing but darkness.

She dreams.

In her dreams she is with the Doctor, running to him, helping him, saving him. He has different faces every time, different voices. One moment her own Doctor, all Scottish grumpiness and eyebrows; next a posh young man in cricket whites; then an old man with fluffy white hair and an impatient manner. Once he’s not a he at all but a blonde woman, shrieking and laughing as she runs from an unseen threat.

But mostly she dreams of the Doctor and the Master. _Koschei_. Now a man with a widow’s peak and a burning ambition, a drive, a need for power at all costs. Next a blond man with an insane grin, killing indiscriminately and laughing at the emptiness inside him that’s filled only with the terrible sound of drums. And then the version she knows best, Missy, with her cold pale eyes and warm auburn hair and her cruel red lips, opening slightly as she begins to speak.

“ _Clara._ ”

She wakes with a start, the dreams echoing on her eyelids but fading so fast. She tries to hold on, but the more she tightens her grip the more the memories slip through her fingers like sand. After only a few moments the only image she’s left with is Missy’s face, her eyes, her lips.

Clara falls back against the pillows and only then realises that she’s in her own bed and it’s night. The lamp is on beside her, casting a warm golden glow over the room. Beside her bed she finds a glass of water and two painkillers and a note written on lilac paper and scented with Missy’s unique perfume.

Clara ignores the pounding in her head and grabs the note.

_My Clara,_

_Forgive me for loving and leaving you. It seems you were a touch too tired tonight for us to complete our little jaunt. I’ll call on you again soon. For now, I have some things to do._

_M_

Clara reads it three times, searching for some hidden clue about when she’ll see Missy again. ‘Soon’ doesn’t help. Missy’s a time traveler - her soon could be tomorrow for Clara, or in a month’s time, or decades from now.

She puts the note neatly away in her top bedside drawer, then takes the pills and drinks the water that Missy left for her, feeling strangely touched by the gesture. This isn’t like the kiss, or the desperate embrace or the heart-throbbing need they’d indulged in on her TARDIS. This is almost like…

Almost like _caring_.

Clara knows it’s stupid to even consider the idea. Missy is a force of nature; a hurricane, an earthquake, a great rolling tsunami. She’s not a soppy human who’d comfort her when she cries, or bring her soup when she’s sick, or hold her as she falls asleep.

She’s ancient, and alien, and terrifying.

But she’s also beautiful, and intense, and endlessly fascinating.

Clara holds her image in her mind as she falls asleep and when she dreams this time there are no images of the Doctor or the previous incarnations of the Master. Just Missy and her pale eyes made warm and dark by desire, and her lips parting as she whispers Clara’s name over and over and over again.


	5. Stardust

**_v - Stardust_ **

Clara’s sitting at her desk marking essays, trying not to despair at how few of her GCSE students can correctly use an apostrophe, when Taylor Ross knocks on her door. She looks up at him, raising her eyebrow.

“I believe you have something to say to me,” she says stiffly.

The boy nods. He has the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry for disappointing you. And wasting your time.” He’s staring at his shoes, grinding the toe of his right trainer rhythmically into the ground.

Clara bites down on her automatic response that he bloody well should be sorry, that he’s a lazy and shiftless little oik, and does he think she’s a _moron_ who wouldn’t notice his little stunt?

“Well, you didn’t waste a lot of my time, to be fair,” she says instead. “I knew within one sentence.” She points to the short story he’d handed in - a copied and pasted printout of Edgar Allan Poe’s _The Black Cat_ with Taylor’s name written on it instead of the author's. “Famous nineteenth century American horror writer and one of the fathers of the short story form or fourteen year old boy who can’t use a semicolon correctly…” She holds out her hands like scales, as if balancing the two ideas in the air. “Not exactly tricky, Taylor.” She chooses not to say that he hasn’t disappointed her either, that disappointment would first require an expectation of better.

The boy flushes in embarrassment. “Sorry, Miss,” he says quietly.

She takes pity on him. “Plagiarism is the worst thing you can do in my class,” she says sternly. “I’d rather you honestly put in no effort than give me something you’ve stolen. Of course, ideally I’d have you putting in an honest effort and doing your best. Do you think you’ll be able to manage that in future?”

Taylor nods, his eyes wide. Clara gives him an appraising look. “Okay, Taylor,” she says. “Let’s draw a line under this and start again. New deadline for your story is one week from now. I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect a genuine effort. And if I get that we’ll put this incident behind us. Deal?”

Taylor sheepishly apologises some more before she sends him away, returning her attention to the stack of essays in front of her. Before she can read more than a paragraph, however, there is another knock on her door.

“What is it now Taylo-” she begins, looking up, but is surprised into silence by the figure standing in her doorway.

Missy is leaning casually on the door frame. But no...not casually, Clara realises after a second of looking at her. She’s leaning on the doorframe trying very hard to _look_ casual. But there’s a tension in her body and a darkness in her eyes that belie the attempt at nonchalance.

“Hello, Clara,” the Time Lady says softly, and there it is again, that hint of something not quite right in her voice that makes Clara frown.

“Missy,” she breathes.

She’s dressed in her usual Victorian outfit again, hair up in a severe bun, hat perched delicately on her head and secured with a hatpin. Clara stares at her, drinking in her strangeness, her air of unspoken danger, her terrifying, exhilarating beauty. Her heart rate jumps as she remembers their last meeting: how they’d kissed and kissed, Clara pressed up against the wall in Missy’s TARDIS, Missy’s mouth devouring hers, her thigh grinding between her legs. And then...what? She couldn’t remember exactly what had happened next. Perhaps she’d fainted - embarrassing, but not entirely unlikely given what Missy does to her, the hormones she causes to stream through her blood.

Missy pushes herself off the doorframe and strides towards Clara with an unreadable look in her eyes. She is by her side in a moment, and then her hand reaches out to curl around Clara’s neck and draw her insistently to her feet. Clara’s breath catches, certain she’s about to be kissed, but Missy just looks at her, her eyes raking up and down her body like she’s trying to memorise her. Then her hand moves, sliding round her pretty neck until it’s resting over her thundering pulse point. The Time Lady’s hand is cool on her overheated skin. Clara feels the hairs on the back of her neck raise at the contrasting sensation.

Missy is a being of contrasts, Clara thinks. Hot and cold, calculating and crazy, casual and intense.

That intensity is turned on Clara now, who feels herself colouring under the weight of it.

“Come with me,” Missy says softly.

“Yes,” Clara replies instantly, and is momentarily shaken by the thought of how far they’ve come so quickly: from mutual antagonism to grudging respect to genuine liking (if still tinged with an acid hit of fear sometimes.)

Missy smiles, seemingly surprised by Clara’s easy acquiescence, then slides her hand down Clara’s neck to her shoulder, then down her arm until she’s holding her hand, their fingers twining together like they were made for each other.

“Come on then,” she says, and tugs at Clara’s hand.

The trip to Missy’s TARDIS goes by in a blur and before she knows it Clara is back in the now familiar Edwardian drawing-room themed control room. It’s different than her last visit though - every time she’s been here it has been lit like it’s a pleasant summer afternoon. Now it’s dark, like a room in the mid evening before its occupants come tumbling in to put on the light.

“It’s dark,” Clara says, needlessly.

Missy shrugs. “Telepathic interface,” she says. “Sometimes the old girl decides to reflect one’s mood.”

Clara frowns and takes a step towards Missy. “What does that mean?”

Missy stares at her for a moment. There’s something behind her eyes that Clara can’t read, something wild and desperate.

Then she looks away and walks over to the piano she uses as a control console. “Any requests?” she asks.

Clara sighs, recognising the wall Missy’s just thrown up. She’s done it before, repeatedly in fact, anytime Clara seems to be getting close to a tender spot. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something,” she says. “How did you find me that night on Ganymede? You just popped out of the shadows like a dream.”

Missy sits at her piano, a small enigmatic smile gracing her lips. “I always know where you are,” she says simply. Her hands rest on the keys. “When I want to find you, I just play your song.” She begins to play a beautiful, lilting melody that is at once pretty and sad.

Clara slowly comes up behind her and rests her hands on the Time Lady’s shoulders. “That’s lovely,” she says quietly.

“So are you,” Missy replies, her tone straightforward and matter-of-fact, but still more than enough to make Clara’s breath catch in her throat. She leans down closer to Missy, slips her arms round the Time Lady’s neck. Slowly, Missy brings her own hands up and wraps them round Clara’s forearms. She’s tense and stiff in Clara’s embrace.

“What’s wrong?” Clara whispers. “You’re not acting like yourself.”

Missy turns suddenly in Clara’s arms and Clara gasps to see tears shining in her eyes. Instead of speaking, Missy leans forward and kisses her. It’s nothing like their last kiss. That was all heat and hormones, but this is slow and soft and somehow sad. Clara can taste salt from Missy’s lips, realises that the tears she’d seen unshed in those pale eyes have begun to fall. She frowns - a little afraid - at the thought of what could possibly have happened to make Missy of all people actually _cry_.

But before she can ask again, Missy pulls away, an obviously fake smile plastered onto her face. “Enough of that,” she says, and her tone brooks no argument. “We’re going on that trip I promised you.”

Clara lets her pull away. There’s no point in pushing: at best she’ll just make Missy clam up even more; at worst she’ll get herself thrown off the TARDIS, and she knows she needs to stay, needs to be with Missy now, to help her get through whatever it is that’s wrong with her.

“Where are we going then?” she asks, and Missy seems to relax.

“A long time ago, but not very far away,” Missy replies, and begins to play.

Clara feels the TARDIS shift ever so slightly as they begin to travel. It’s nothing like travelling on the Doctor’s TARDIS - that’s all frantic noise and rushing around and pulling levers. This is much more serene and elegant - not that Clara had expected anything different from Missy.

There’s something else that’s different: this TARDIS has a functioning chameleon circuit. After they arrive at their destination, Missy plays a tiny addition to the melody that brought them there and the walls of the TARDIS melt away, as does all the furniture in the room. Clara gasps. They’re in deep space, surrounded by stars, their steady glow lighting them both with a gentle, pale luminescence. Clara is suddenly reminded of walking out of a prison cell on Skaro into what looked like nothingness, remembers laughing and twirling around on the surface of that world, staring at the impossible stars above and below them.

She wonders if Missy remembers that too, if that’s why she’s brought her to this place. Then she feels Missy take one of her hands and place it on her shoulder, one of her own hands resting on Clara’s waist before she takes Clara’s remaining hand in hers.

“May I have this dance?” Missy asks.

Clara smiles. She does remember. “Certainly,” she replies, relaxing into Missy’s embrace.

They don’t need music; their movements fall naturally in sync as they step and twirl through the stars. Clara barely notices the beauty all around them, focused as she is on the beauty in her arms. Missy’s face is intense but closed, her pupils dilated and her eyes dark.

“Look over there,” Missy whispers after a few minutes, halting their dance and pointing towards a point of light in the far distance. “It’s about to happen.”

“What is?” Clara asks, but her question is answered almost immediately by a huge, tremendous, blinding flash of light. She gasps and turns her head to bury her face in Missy’s neck. “What the hell is that?” she asks, her heart racing.

“It’s a supernova.” Missy’s voice is high and exhilarated. “The death throes of a very old, very powerful star. Screaming its end out into the universe. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Clara risks another look now her eyes have somewhat adjusted, and realises that the TARDIS must be filtering out the vast majority of the energy from the star’s explosion, because she’s sure being this close to the destruction should have blinded her at the very least. Missy’s right; it is beautiful. But…

“Is destruction the only thing you can find beauty in?”

Clara can’t look at Missy, knows what she’s said is as likely to enrage the Time Lady as elicit a response. She’s surprised to feel a gentle hand under her chin, turning her face towards Missy.

“It’s not just destruction, Clara,” Missy says in a low, intense voice. “That star has spent its entire life turning hydrogen into helium. Then when the hydrogen was all used up it started turning the helium into more complex things. Oxygen and carbon and iron. All the things needed to make humans and Time Lords. And now it’s giving the universe its last gift - blasting those new atoms out into the cosmos to make planets and animals and people. You and I might have some of its atoms in us right now.” She bends her head to rest her forehead against Clara’s. “It’s not just destruction. It’s creation, too. It’s creating the stardust that made you.”

Clara’s breath is coming in slow, shallow gasps. “Missy,” she whispers, then feels the press of the Time Lady’s mind against hers. This time she’s not afraid.

Missy’s mind is different than last time. Before, her mind was fiery, fierce, burning with obsession and attraction and lust. This time it’s bleak and cold, empty but for a keening, hopeless grief that seems to whip through Clara like an icy wind. She doesn’t understand, doesn’t know where Missy’s pain is coming from, but she longs to ease it anyway. _Come to me,_ she whispers in her mind. _Koschei, come to me._

She feels it the moment Missy walks through the open door of her mental invitation. It’s nothing - _nothing_ \- like before. She can feel Missy everywhere; in every thought, every memory, every beat of her heart. She can feel the Time Lady’s presence filling her up inside, under her skin, in her blood.

She can’t imagine how she’ll ever live without this feeling. She needs it, like oxygen or carbon or iron.

“Clara,” Missy gasps, pulling away. Her eyes are bright, but the despair Clara had sensed in them before has gone, replaced by a disbelieving hope. “Oh, my impossible girl!”

She bends her head again, but she’s seeking a different kind of intimacy than telepathy. She captures Clara’s lips with hers in a kiss that’s surprisingly gentle, surprisingly chaste. Then Clara’s hands bury themselves in her hair and her lips part and Missy is kissing her with all the fierce longing and intensity of the Mistress of Time.

“I’m going to save you,” she murmurs between desperate, open-mouthed kisses.

“Save me from what?” Clara mumbles back, her heart pounding.

Missy doesn’t answer. Instead, she stares deeply into her dark eyes for a long moment, then raises a trembling hand to her flushed cheek. “My Clara,” she whispers, then kisses her again, and again, while outside a dying star blazes its end to the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of that. There are a couple more stories planned in this series, but it may take me a while to actually write them as I seem to have fallen head first into another fandom. Oops. But I _will_ be returning to these two.


End file.
